La Peira en Damaisela 'Les Obriers de la Peira' 2009

Wine Advocate 90-91"Tasted as a pre-assemblage (although I also tasted the individual components), La Peira’s Cinsault-Carignan 2009 Les Obriers de la Peira is initially smoky and nutty in a slightly reduced way, needing aeration to reveal more diverse and alluring scents of hibiscus, mulberry, and kirsch. Dark berries and beet root mingle with black tea and brown spices on a richly-textured yet infectiously juicy palate. Alkaline and wet stone suggestions underline a lingering finish. Some of the fine inner-mouth florality exhibited by this wine’s 2008 rendition was approached in the largest lot of the 2009 – which remained in upright wooden fermentor – but submerged in the blend, hopefully to eventually reappear. Expect this to reward for at least 3-4 years. (From the upright fermentor in which most of it was aged, the 2010 base wine already smelled and tasted irresistible in April, but it was to be blended with several small barrels of concentrated, minerally old vines Carignan, not all of which were through malo – although most of the cellar had completed that transformation.)"~DS